Tomorrow I will be busting my hump to get from my 8:30 AM screening of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides to a screening of Peter Chan’s Wu Xia, which screens approximately 13 minutes after Pirates ends. Hopefully there won’t be any little children in the way as I will be on a take no prisoners mission to see the film that was recently acquired by the Weinstein Co. for domestic distribution, because otherwise I will have to catch a screening tonight at 11:30 PM… I don’t want to do that.
Based on the following teaser trailer, Wu Xia looks like a punishing martial arts film starring Donnie Yen (Ip Man), Takeshi Kaneshiro (Chungking Express), Tang Wei (Lust, Caution) and Jimmy Wang Yu (One Armed Swordsman) and is set during the late Qing Dynasty. The synopsis reads as follows:
Liu (Yen) is a papermaker, leading a simple life with his wife Ayu (Tang Wei) and their two sons. Into their remote village comes Detective Xu (Takeshi Kaneshiro), who is investigating the deaths of two bandits during a robbery. Xu quickly realizes that the incident in question was no ordinary botched robbery — and his dogged inquiry threatens to dredge up the dark secrets of Liu’s buried past, threatening not only Liu and his family, but the entire village.
Check out the teaser trailer below, which offers a fair amount of blood and “C.S.I.”-esque CG organ destruction. The film is already set for an August release in China with the Weinstein Co. anticipating a U.S. release later this year and they have also acquired the first option to remake rights for the film.
Quoted in the press release announcing the acquisition, director Peter Chan said, “During the production, Donnie was telling me that Wu Xia becomes more and more like a Weinstein movie. It’s no coincidence that Harvey [Weinstein] likes the film. I am thrilled to work with Harvey and I think The Weinstein Co. is the best company to take this film to the US and international audience.”
